Chicken Shawarma Sandwich

Source: My own imagination and love of shawarma

Tried it: YES

Thoughts: Great! Next time I will put more chicken on the sandwich and use a pickle with more flavor. Best with the toum (garlic sauce) made a day ahead so it can be chilled overnight.

How this came together:

Inspired by the abundance of garlic sauce from the previous night's experiment, I stopped at the store for some thin pita and chicken and got to work...

• Placed the pita in a 250 degree oven to warm while the rest was being prepared.

• Thinly sliced the chicken and sauteed it in olive oil and greek spices:

• Chopped up some tomatoes & dill pickles, then layered the garlic sauce, chicken, tomatoes and pickles on the warm pita:

• Rolled it up, secured with a toothpick, and enjoyed with some other Mediterranean treats! Delish.

Toum (Lebanese Garlic Sauce)

Source: Mama's Lebanese Kitchen

Tried it: YES

Thoughts: Wow. FINALLY, a garlic sauce recipe that turned out just like the restaurant! Click here for the recipe (and watch the video - it helped the most).

The recipe made enough garlic sauce to feed an army... luckily it stores well!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup peeled garlic cloves (about three whole bulbs)
• 1 tsp salt - I used Kosher
• 4 cups canola oil
• Juice of one lemon

Lettuce Wraps

Source: Followed a Food.com recipe: click here. It's a "copycat" recipe intended to taste like PF Chang's lettuce wraps.

Tried it: Yes... Yum.

Thoughts: I followed the recipe exactly for the sauces, but will change things up next time. Although everything was great when combined together, the "special sauce" alone was a little too sweet for me... I'll definitely cut the sugar content, and mix up the other ingredients a bit.

My changes for this time around were:

• Added the hot mustard & chili paste directly into the Special Sauce before refrigerating
• Used pre-cooked chicken: Trader Joe's Roasted Rosemary Chicken Breast (about 3/4 of the package). 
• Added Chinese noodles to the wraps (boiled them briefly, then crisped them in a lightly oiled pan)
• Added a bit more soy sauce to the hot mixture when cooking
• Sprinkled cayenne on each wrap before serving

Zucchini

Ahhh... summer zucchini from the garden. I love summer zucchini from the garden. Nice big julienne(ish) slices make for a hearty side dish:

Usually olive oil, salt, and pepper are all I use. But this time I tried something different and used a bit of Williams-Sonoma Smoke House Rub. This set of dry rubs is all-around good, but the Smoke House is top notch.

Sweet Potato Chips

These are DELICIOUS. And healthy to boot.

I found a bunch of recipes online for this, but didn't follow any of them exactly. The temperatures were all over the place... so here's how I went about it:

1. Thinly slice sweet potatoes (three potatoes used in this attempt). Use a mandolin if you have one... I'm loving my Pampered Chef mandolin for this recipe!

2. In a large bowl, toss potato slices with a bit of olive oil (just enough to lightly coat each slice... perhaps 3-4 tablespoons for 3 potatoes).

3. Place slices in a single layer on a cookie sheet and sprinkle with a little salt (this can be done in step 2 instead, but I prefer the better control over the salt when the potatoes are in a layer.)

4. Bake at 200 degrees for one hour.

5. Flip potatoes, increase oven temperature to 225 degrees. Bake for an additional hour. (Keep an eye on them after 30 minutes or so... they will finish much faster on darker cookie sheets, and the thinner chips may finish baking sooner.)

6. Remove from oven when they are browned and crisp. Some of the thicker chips will crisp up as they cool off. Enjoy!

Roasted Garlic

This is one of my favorites... roasted garlic is good in so many dishes. In its simplest form, spread roasted cloves onto crusty bread. Or squeeze out the roasted cloves and use in any dish calling for roasted garlic.

1. Cut about 1/4 inch from the top of the garlic bulb. I also trim a bit off the sides if there are any cloves fully covered by the skin; I like to be sure each clove is exposed to absorb the oil.

2. Pour one tablespoon olive oil into the bulb. Pour slowly so as much oil can seep into the garlic as possible. Sprinkle with a bit of salt (I use kosher) and pepper.

3. TIGHTLY wrap the bulb in foil. In this instance I did not wrap it well, and the olive oil ended up smoking in the bottom of my oven. Not good.

4. Bake at 400 degrees for 45 minutes, or until the garlic is golden brown and spreadable. Allow the bulb to cool a bit before handling. The cloves will be HOT.

Spreadable, delectable, garlicky goodness

Guacamole - Martha Stewart

Source: Martha Stewart (magazine, perhaps?)

Tried it: Not yet